HDD key not recognised

[extra-ordinary_]

I've a softmod 1.6 where I'm trying to fill the 2TB replacement HDD with all my game backups. I'm finding FTP painful so thought I could connect the HDD directly to windows PC and access through FATXplorer. When I try and connect the SATA 2TB xbox HDD to my PC through one of the SATA connections,  when I then boot the PC, I get an Asrock BIOS message that there's a locked HDD attached and to enter the password. I've tried 32 x 1, and TEAMASSEMBLY without success. I then read my original eeprom_original.bin and entered the original key and that was no better. Do I need to hotswap the HDD? I don't think my PC does hotswapping.

[extra-ordinary_]

I've since discovered my board supports hot plugging but W10 does not detect the drive no matter what I try. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by extra-ordinary_

[dtomcat]

HDD key is not the password   HDD key, model number, and serial number are used to derive the password. Not sure what you mean my hotswapping.  Do you mean your removing your windows drive to put your Xbox drive in?

[extra-ordinary_]

Apologies, HDD password and hot plugging, rather than hot swapping. I'm trying to connect my Xbox HDD to my PC to copy files to from my windows drive. The BIOS is not accepting anything I enter as a password and if I try and connect the drive after the PC has booted, I can't get windows or FATXplorer to detect it.

[dtomcat]

Is it original drive?

[dtomcat]

If so send me a picture of the label and your HDD key

[Bowlsnapper]

1 hour ago, extra-ordinary_ said:

Apologies, HDD password and hot plugging, rather than hot swapping. I'm trying to connect my Xbox HDD to my PC to copy files to from my windows drive. The BIOS is not accepting anything I enter as a password and if I try and connect the drive after the PC has booted, I can't get windows or FATXplorer to detect it.

Doing something Like that would make me so paranoid... HDDs should stay plugged in always. Lol

[Fringle]

4 hours ago, extra-ordinary_ said:

I've a softmod 1.6 where I'm trying to fill the 2TB replacement HDD with all my game backups. I'm finding FTP painful so thought I could connect the HDD directly to windows PC and access through FATXplorer. When I try and connect the SATA 2TB xbox HDD to my PC through one of the SATA connections,  when I then boot the PC, I get an Asrock BIOS message that there's a locked HDD attached and to enter the password. I've tried 32 x 1, and TEAMASSEMBLY without success. I then read my original eeprom_original.bin and entered the original key and that was no better. Do I need to hotswap the HDD? I don't think my PC does hotswapping.

Since it's softmodded already use ftp to dump your eeprom.bin and unlock the drive with it.  If you don't have the eeprom.bin already on the drive use one of the many tools for softmods to dump it to the hdd and use ftp to get it on your pc.  After that no more hotswapping required.  Evox dash has the ability to backup your eeprom.bin to the hdd.  Just remember to relock the drive before putting it back in the xbox.  If it's not accepting the password you are typing in, tell fatxplorer where your eeprom with the load from eeprom option just unlock it with that.  It will store the password for future use.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Fringle

[extra-ordinary_]

43 minutes ago, Fringle said:

Since it's softmodded already use ftp to dump your eeprom.bin and unlock the drive with it.  If you don't have the eeprom.bin already on the drive use one of the many tools for softmods to dump it to the hdd and use ftp to get it on your pc.  After that no more hotswapping required.  Evox dash has the ability to backup your eeprom.bin to the hdd.  Just remember to relock the drive before putting it back in the xbox.  If it's not accepting the password you are typing in, tell fatxplorer where your eeprom with the load from eeprom option just unlock it with that.  It will store the password for future use.

Like I've said, Windows or FATXplorer do not detect the drive after hot plugging it, so there's no opportunity to start pointing my eeprom.bin file at it.

What's interesting with the BIOS prompts when the drive is connected when the PC boots is that it first asks for user password and then asks for master password which I presume is prompted after the previous failed attempts, but regardless, nothing I enter for either user or master is accepted. If I did manage to get it accepted by the BIOS then windows and FATXplorer would be able to detect it.

Maybe I need to put a blank drive in the PC and install W7 on it and possibly the hot plug might get detected.

2 hours ago, Dtomcat18 said:

Is it original drive?

Not an original drive no.

Drive is a WD Blue MDL:WD20EZBX - 00AYRA0 ; S/N: WX12A82JCLRF

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by extra-ordinary_

[dtomcat]

6 minutes ago, extra-ordinary_ said:

Not an original drive no.

Yea.  Re read post and figured that out

[KaosEngineer]

Install and run Evoxdash +3935.  Execute its Settings > Backup menu option.  Download the hddinfo.txt file it creates in the backup subfolder where evoxdash is installed on your hard drive.

This file includes the HDD Unlocking password as well as the HDKey used to compute the unlocking password.  The password itself is cryptographically computed using the XboxHDKey, hard drive model and serial number.  

The unlocking password in this file is 64 characters long (32 bytes) of hexadecimal values.

For example:

• HDDLockDisablePassword dc e8 66 1d cd 84 3f 91 e0 b4 c1 76 68 f6 24 ed 0c be d0 7c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Or, after removing the byte separating space characters:

• dce8661dcd843f91e0b4c17668f624ed0cbed07c

The first 20 bytes (non 00 values) are the unlocking password.

I'm not sure what type of data your PC's BIOS expects for the password value - an ASCII text string (e.g., PleaseUnlockHardDrive) or a hexadecimal string (e.g., 50 6c 65 61 73 65 55 6e 6c 6f 63 6b 48 44 72 69 76 65 or 506c65617365556e6c6f636b484472697665).  If it expects an ASCII text string (hex byte characters 0x20-0x7F), I'm not sure how you will enter the unlocking password at your BIOS's prompt as some of the bytes are outside of this range.

 

Edit: Easier to connect the upgraded Xbox SATA hard drive using a USB2.0-to-IDE/SATA adapter. This method allows the hard drive to be connected after the PC has booted.  Run FATXplorer 3.0 beta and with the Xbox's downloaded eeprom.bin backup file unlock the hard drive.

 

[KaosEngineer]

3 hours ago, extra-ordinary_ said:

Apologies, HDD password and hot plugging, rather than hot swapping. I'm trying to connect my Xbox HDD to my PC to copy files to from my windows drive. The BIOS is not accepting anything I enter as a password and if I try and connect the drive after the PC has booted, I can't get windows or FATXplorer to detect it.

Can you connect the SATA hard drive to your PC but leave power disconnected? 

After the computer boots, connect the power cable and rescan for new drives with the DIsk Management application's menu option Action > Rescan Disks.

[Marty]

Buy a USB 3.5" hard drive enclosure. It's useful for a lot of things. If you buy a two-bay enclosure, you can easily clone drives.

[extra-ordinary_]

Yes, I tried all the rescans after hot plugging in device/disk manager and diskpart. I don't think it was ever going to be discoverable really if the motherboard BIOS already had it down as a locked HDD so don't think it was ever getting past the BIOS no matter whether I connected it before or after the OS loaded. Just as a side note, according to the official motherboard hot plug procedure, I saw that it's the power that's meant to be connected before the data (even though I'd already tried it both ways at that stage).

I'm sticking an empty drive into the PC to install W7 so I'll have a go with that Evoxdash while it's installing to see if I get somewhere. It's strange that the BIOS requests the 'User' password and then the 'Master' password. Which password is the one I'll get off the hddinfo.txt I'm wondering.

Edited October 30, 2023 by extra-ordinary_

[dtomcat]

User… I believe Xbox disables master 

[FrostyMaGee]

Can’t you sometimes force an unlock on the Xbox hdd during boot if you pull the power or ide cable from the dvd? Like during the flubber screen. That’s a down and dirty way of doing it but I swear I did it a few times long long ago. Am I remembering that wrong? Not ideal of course. 

Edited October 30, 2023 by FrostyMaGee

[extra-ordinary_]

I tried pulling the data and the power from the DVD drive but neither unlocked the HDD unless there's a specific moment during the flubber startup I should be doing it as as it was I was pulling the cables as soon as I saw it. Is there no other way I can unlock the HDD and then pull the power on the xbox and take the unlocked HDD out? I did the backup in the evox dash but it's changed my IP and I can't seem to be able to establish an FTP connection to it.

[dtomcat]

Pulling power to Xbox or HDD would result in drive being locked again.  Only thing that may work is pulling data cable and leaving drive powered and plugging into PC. But I’m not 100% sure 

[Bowlsnapper]

1 minute ago, Dtomcat18 said:

Pulling power to Xbox or HDD would result in drive being locked again.  Only thing that may work is pulling data cable and leaving drive powered and plugging into PC. But I’m not 100% sure 

That's what I was gonna say. Theoretically, it would keep the EEPROM from locking the drive again. However, I know one of the pins has something to do with power (like how the Xtender mod worked when picking a HDD to boot from) If that comes out before the rest of the data connection, it may not work... also, I'm afraid of bricking the firmware that way. I don't know if that's how it works though.

[FrostyMaGee]

37 minutes ago, Dtomcat18 said:

Pulling power to Xbox or HDD would result in drive being locked again.  Only thing that may work is pulling data cable and leaving drive powered and plugging into PC. But I’m not 100% sure 

Correct. I was thinking if he pulled the power or data to the dvd drive while in boot. I swear I used that trick long ago but I believe the timing had to be spot on. It’s always possible I’m not remembering it correctly. 
 

Since he can boot though the ideal way would just be to grab the eeprom via ftp (or via a picoprom  ) and just buy a usb sata dock that works with xboxhd or fatx. I have a thermaltake that works great with sata drives. I haven’t ever done the hot swapping with a sata drive. I’ve done it in years past with old ide comps though. Wonder if he would have an easier time running the dvd or usb bootable versión rather than having to put up with win 10?

Edited October 30, 2023 by FrostyMaGee
Just realized he said he already has the bin.

[Fringle]

14 hours ago, extra-ordinary_ said:

Like I've said, Windows or FATXplorer do not detect the drive after hot plugging it, so there's no opportunity to start pointing my eeprom.bin file at it.

What's interesting with the BIOS prompts when the drive is connected when the PC boots is that it first asks for user password and then asks for master password which I presume is prompted after the previous failed attempts, but regardless, nothing I enter for either user or master is accepted. If I did manage to get it accepted by the BIOS then windows and FATXplorer would be able to detect it.

Maybe I need to put a blank drive in the PC and install W7 on it and possibly the hot plug might get detected.

Not an original drive no.

Drive is a WD Blue MDL:WD20EZBX - 00AYRA0 ; S/N: WX12A82JCLRF

 

As long as you have the proper eeprom.bin file backed up to relock the drive, I'm pretty sure it is possible to unlock the drive with the xbox using config magic.  Just be careful not to change any settings and just unlock the drive. This should allow you to use it on pc and then use fatxplorer to relock the drive when you're done.

[extra-ordinary_]

Thanks for all the help guys.

Couldn't get FTP going at all through the router with EvoX but eventually managed to get the hddinfo.txt with a direct connection. Tried my 315ba78963891265fa85140e614385ff746fa04d HDD password on the PC but it was not accepted. So I installed config magic and interestingly that app shows the HDD password with all the letters in upper case. At at this point though, I just unlocked the HDD with config magic and turned off the xbox.

I now have the HDD open in FATXplorer on the PC, but is there a 137GB limit setting somewhere on this as when I try and copy files onto 800GB free space of a partition it tells me I've only 40GB of available space?

[Fringle]

32 minutes ago, extra-ordinary_ said:

Thanks for all the help guys.

Couldn't get FTP going at all through the router with EvoX but eventually managed to get the hddinfo.txt with a direct connection. Tried my 315ba78963891265fa85140e614385ff746fa04d HDD password on the PC but it was not accepted. So I installed config magic and interestingly that app shows the HDD password with all the letters in upper case. At at this point though, I just unlocked the HDD with config magic and turned off the xbox.

I now have the HDD open in FATXplorer on the PC, but is there a 137GB limit setting somewhere on this as when I try and copy files onto 800GB free space of a partition it tells me I've only 40GB of available space?

Your best option then might be to backup your c, e, and f drives.  Then use fatxplorer to recreate the drive using the option for Cerbios.  In doing so you can point it to the locations where you saved the files from each drive during the backup and it will copy the files back for you.

Essentially create an xbox hdd backup folder.  In this folder create C, E, F folders and copy the files from each partition in to these folders.  Then when recreating the drive you can point to these specific folders for each partition and Fatxplorer will put the files back into their proper folders on the newly created hdd.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Fringle

[extra-ordinary_]

1 hour ago, Fringle said:

Your best option then might be to backup your c, e, and f drives.  Then use fatxplorer to recreate the drive using the option for Cerbios.  In doing so you can point it to the locations where you saved the files from each drive during the backup and it will copy the files back for you.

Essentially create an xbox hdd backup folder.  In this folder create C, E, F folders and copy the files from each partition in to these folders.  Then when recreating the drive you can point to these specific folders for each partition and Fatxplorer will put the files back into their proper folders on the newly created hdd.

eh...ignore my 137GB limit thing above as I had the 'E' partition mounted in FATXplorer rather than the 'F'...ugh...lol

 

Before I copy any more, I can't see any mention of Cerbios in FATXplorer. I'm new to all of this. I saw mention that Cerbios now available for softmodded consoles and project Stellar chipped devices but I'm not sure how to flash it onto my system. But even after all that, what would the advantages of Cerbios give me? The only thing I've taken note of is the possibility of deleting the DVD drive which I might be interested in doing so that I could use a shorter IDE cable and leave the DVD drive disconnected, although I'm not even sure if I've got that fully correct.

 

As it is I'm manually un7zipping each game and then transferring the game folders/files to the Xbox HDD. Is there a better way in being able to batch unzip the compressed files or is there any benefit to convert the game files to a different format? I've no experience with XISO files or .xbe files etc.

Edited October 30, 2023 by extra-ordinary_

[Fringle]

6 hours ago, extra-ordinary_ said:

eh...ignore my 137GB limit thing above as I had the 'E' partition mounted in FATXplorer rather than the 'F'...ugh...lol

 

Before I copy any more, I can't see any mention of Cerbios in FATXplorer. I'm new to all of this. I saw mention that Cerbios now available for softmodded consoles and project Stellar chipped devices but I'm not sure how to flash it onto my system. But even after all that, what would the advantages of Cerbios give me? The only thing I've taken note of is the possibility of deleting the DVD drive which I might be interested in doing so that I could use a shorter IDE cable and leave the DVD drive disconnected, although I'm not even sure if I've got that fully correct.

 

As it is I'm manually un7zipping each game and then transferring the game folders/files to the Xbox HDD. Is there a better way in being able to batch unzip the compressed files or is there any benefit to convert the game files to a different format? I've no experience with XISO files or .xbe files etc.

Cerbios will only show up as an option when formatting or creating a new xbox hdd. As for using cerbios on a softmod I'm not too sure as I don't have any experience using it that way.

If all of your zipped games are each in their own folder within the zip archive you can select multiple zip files at once and extract them to a single folder from the right click context menu.  This doesn't really save time but saves you from extracting each one individually.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Fringle